Sunday, August 16, 2009

Choodiyaan...

Mix and mingle the different hues of a rainbow in different proportions and you would get a new colour each time. Name any and you can get bangles of that colour - they are so widely available. Shining and gleaming with a light of their own, these circular pieces are an important part of traditional Indian jewellery.

No Indian wedding would be complete without bangles. For many Indian cultures, bangles signify the marital status of a woman. Punjabi women wear 'chooda' on and after marriage - it is a set of red and white bangles with decoration. Bengali women wear the traditional 'Shakha', 'Pola' and 'Loha Badhano' after marriage.

Intricately designed or plain and simple, studded with diamonds or with pearls, for centuries, bangles have been decorating the hands of Indian women - the presence of bangles have been traced back to the Mohenjo Daro Civilization.

The charm of bangles is in the sweet jingling sound they make as they collide with each other. The sound one can hear as a teacher raises her hand to point to something on the blackboard, the sound one can hear as a mother pats her child to sleep, the sound one can hear as a girl shyly runs away from her lover...